Gasps and cries surround us, and as I scan the crowd of at least fifty to sixty people, young and old, watching a scene that could have easily been taken straight out of a Chicago Fire episode, my skin starts to prickle.
Aubrey.
I feel her before seeing her. Her hand is clasped over her mouth trying to hide her horror as she frantically hunts the area in search of her brother and me.
My jaw clenches tight.
One rule.
One fucking rule.
I stand, walk the short distance that separates us and while I’m cursing under my breath, I’m also silently pleading her to leave.
Too fucking late.
The second her glossy eyes lock with mine, she reads right through me. Her gaze lowers and falls on the motionless body behind me.
Among all the chaotic orders being shouted, the sound of water flowing through the pipes, the screams coming from the surrounding neighbors, the sirens, the honking… her thundering wail is the only thing I can hear.
“Let me go,” she cries after leaping over the barricade. Her small body fights every officer who tries to hold her back, and she rushes right past me, stumbling on every other step. “Vince!”
Another fearful sob breaks out of her and when I turn around, I see Asa picking her up from off the ground. She clutches onto him, pulling on his coat as tears stream down her face. He gives me a look, one that tells me he wants me to switch places with him, but I can’t move.
I could have gone to her. I should have reacted when the police restrained her, forcing her to stay back and away from imminent danger. I should have run to her, taken her into my arms, reassured her that her twin wasn’t going to die right in front of her eyes, and that everything was going to be okay. I should have screamed at her, unleashed all my worry, my resentment, my fury because she was right smack in the middle of a RECEO, breaking her promise and jeopardizing her life in a way she swore she’d never do.
I could be doing so many things, but I don’t because right now, my entire world is at a standstill. A perpetual limbo between self-preservation and anger while I hope and plead for some damn miracle to happen.
And for that timeless moment, I become my twelve-year-old self all over again. My feet are frozen in place as I constantly mumble my apologies, hoping anyone will believe that I didn’t mean for all of this to happen.
All I wanted was to save a kid’s life.
“I got a pulse,” someone calls out. His words pull me out of my daze. Blinking several times, I notice Vince on the stretcher, being pushed inside an ambulance by one of the paramedics.
Without giving it a second thought, I rush and hop on the bus with him.
“Get out.” Venom transpires Aubrey’s whisper when her accusing eyes meet mine. When I don’t move, her foot touches the first step and she effortlessly climbs inside the ambulance.
The EMT eyes us both with a look of urgency. We all know that Vince doesn’t have time for this. I also know the rules and need to step down, but I don’t want to.
“Micah, he’s my brother.” Invading the limited space, her small rigid and unwelcoming body presses against mine. She takes a seat. My seat. “Get the fuck out—now.”
I have nothing left in me, so I step out, and that moment where her orbs lock with mine, right before the door closes, I can see her worry, I can see her fear, but the sole emotion I manage to retain and focus on is the blame.
I know that look.
It feels all too familiar.
Eleven Years Ago
He comes back from work and shouts at her.
She stays home and ignores him.
He drinks to forget.
She sleeps to evade.
Same story… every damn day.
“I just—I can’t. Not now. Not tonight,” she shrieks. “You don’t understand.”
“He needs this. You’re supposed to be taking care of him. It’s your responsibility as a mother, Alessia. When will you get off your self-pity boat—”
“She died!”
“And he’s still here. He’s our son—your son. We’re still a family.”
“A family?” She laughs, sounding cold and bitter. So different than the woman she used to be. “Please, Cade. We haven’t been a real family in months. You flee the house by going to work and instead of coming home when you’re done, you go drown your sorrows at the one place I constantly beg you not to go to.”
“What’s wrong with The Devil’s Gate, Alessia, huh? Afraid I might find out something I don’t already know? Do you really think you have a say in what I do or what I say? Have you forgotten that while you sleep all day, I work? I search, I learn things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that while you’re doing nothing, I’m looking for answers. You don’t even bother picking up the damn phone when the school calls to tell you Micah isn’t where he’s supposed to be. Don’t you care about him at all?”
“Of course I do.”
Lies… you both are too self-absorbed to pay attention.
You both hate me too much to care.
“He is my son,” she hisses. “I love him more than you ever could, and unlike you, I do what I have to do to take care of him.”
My father cackles.
The customary Lambert-Liani blame game. I’ve become so used to it, it’s almost comical. They talk about me as if I’m not there, or maybe it’s because they think I can’t hear them. And it’s pretty damn hilarious to hear them throw the L-word around like they actually mean it.
I’ve learned fast enough that I’m better off tuning them out. When my parents aren’t arguing, they’re ignoring each other and if not that, they’re fucking. Or at least that’s what I think they do when the bedframe hammers a constant thud on the wall over my head. My father doesn’t hit my mother… no—that kind of raw anger is meant for me.
I turn up the sound of Eminem playing on my iPod and take another hit. Smoke fills my lungs and it feels so damn good… or at least I know that soon enough it will. Everything will become fuzzy, my body will be numb, and for an hour or two, if I’m lucky enough, I am going to forget.
The funniest part of me getting high in my own bedroom? They don’t even realize I’m doing it, or maybe they do, but don’t care enough to stop me.
Pathetic right? But it really isn’t. Not to me anyway. It’s my reality. It’s what I want.
Back in the basement.
Back to where it all happened.
Ironic? Again, no. It’s where I choose to be. Why? Because being closer to the pits of Hell is exactly where I deserve to be.
Alone, but most of all; forgotten.
“Micah,” my father barks from the stairwell. I knew it would be a matter of time before I got called up. He hadn’t managed to get through to her, so it’s my turn to be his target.
As I step off my bed and head toward my bedroom door, I wonder if she knows...has she seen the bruises? Does she notice the marks on my body when I walk around the house shirtless?
Probably not. She refuses to look at me. Or maybe she does but doesn’t care enough to tell him to stop. Either way, I should know by now it’s a lost cause.
Passing by the mirror of my wardrobe, I notice my languid gray eyes; sunken, empty, and bloodshot. If I focus long enough, I can see the two specks of light almost touching each other.
They’re faint, but they’re still there.
She had the same, now they’re gone.
I don’t want to go upstairs, but if I don’t follow through on his demand, there’s a high chance I’ll be submitting my body to another session of being choked, punched, and tossed around like a ragdoll. And although I don’t mind the physical pain, my previous bruises haven’t healed properly yet, and I’m not sure my body or my mind could make it through another beating right now.
I eye the Blaze pendant hanging on my wardrobe door.
Not today anyway.
Stepping out of my room, my fingers scrape th
e walls and my parents’ bickering becomes a simple faint noise in the background. I close my eyes and climb up the stairs step by step, abrading my nails against the paint and smiling when I manage to flay a few pieces away.
They used to be colorful. Now they’re plain. White. Lifeless. They used to have picture frames filled with smiles, but now they’re gone. All the memories burned to ash like she never existed.
“Micah!” my father growls again. His brows are pulled together, inspecting my every move as I take my time walking up the steps. He’s all dressed up, kinda confusing if you ask me. My father works construction, he doesn’t do the clean pants and shirts thing unless we have a special event planned out. He waits for me to reach the last stair before addressing me again. “Mr. Palowski called me at work today. He said you didn’t show up to school.”
“Fever.” I figure I have a fifty-fifty chance of him buying my lame excuse. Whatever he has planned for us, I have no intentions of sticking around for it.
I meet his eyes, hoping he’ll move aside so I can get away from the stairs and grab my skateboard from inside the closet. He doesn’t. I can tell he’s enjoying my vulnerability right now. All it would take is one slow reach and he can pretend I accidentally fell backward and broke my own neck.
“You seem fine to me.”
“Do I?”
His jaw goes rigid and his left brow lifts at my sarcasm, but something forces his animosity to die down.
He’s sober for the first time in months, and there’s something different in his eye. It’s almost as if his worry is genuine. I check the time on the clock behind him, it’s still early. Surely his next destination will be the bar… maybe something classier than the usual tavern he goes to.
“I’d like to take you two out for dinner tonight, there’s someone I would like you to meet.”
I laugh. It comes out loud and morbid, making them both cringe. A family dinner with friends? This has to be some sort of joke. “Sorry, Dad. I have plans.”
“Where are you going, sweetheart?” My mother’s voice is frail, and funnily enough for the first time in weeks, there’s an honest apprehension in her tone.
“Aaryn’s.”
“I don’t like it when you hang out with the Walker kid. She’s a bad influence,” she replies.
I snort. I swear these two are acting weird as fuck. My mother has never cared about who I hang out with. Ever. And if she wants me to believe her sudden concern, she should at least put a little bit of effort into it to make it believable. “Tell you what, Mom. I’ll be more than delighted to stay home or join you and Dad for a fake happy family dinner to meet your new friend if you can look me in the eye and ask me not to leave.”
My dad grips my bicep and ignoring the cursed hiss blowing out of me, he drags me up on the first floor. “The both of you are coming. Go get dressed. Now.”
I look at her, plead her to do something, say something, to stop him, but she doesn’t.
She couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t. Who the hell knows?
In Alessia’s beautiful lost mind, I probably deserve every second of what I’m being put through, earned every wound that marks my skin.
“Mom!” I cringe at the pain.
Her attempt is worse than pathetic. Less than a second: that’s all it takes. As soon as her crystal orbs meet mine, they hit the hardwood floor.
She avoids my eyes more than she avoids my father’s temper.
She hates me.
She blames me.
The corners of my lips draw back in a snarl and although I’m well aware that I will be paying for fighting back, I shove Cade away from me.
He loses his balance and knocks his head on the wall behind him. I use the opportunity to slip past him. “You’re going to pay for that, you bastard piece of shit.”
“That’s fine, Dad, by the time curfew comes around, I’ll be too fucking high to care anyway.” I grab my board, bolt out of the house and slam the door before he can catch me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Micah
Present
“Devil’s Gate,” Ethan answers after the second ring.
“It’s me.”
He releases what sounds like a long-relieved sigh. “I heard about the fire… everything okay?”
I’m too transfixed by the rhythm of “The Sound of Silence” playing in the background to answer. Over half-an-hour has passed since the ambulance left Moore’s Drive, carrying two of the most important people in my life inside their bus, and rather than being with them at the hospital, I’m leaning on my bike in the middle of The Devil’s Gate’s vacant parking lot, staring at a dark starless sky.
“Micah?”
The engine of a Ford Mustang coming up the street grabs my attention. I glance over my shoulder and follow the cloud of dust trailing behind the car as it speeds down the road. “My dad here?”
“You know very well your father hasn’t set foot inside my bar in over three years, kid.”
I do know, but it doesn’t stop me from asking. Never does. I avoid the bar on weeknights out of habit. I don’t trust my father because I know that one day or another, he’ll neglect his survival instincts and pay his favorite drinking place a visit.
I can’t risk being here when it happens.
Three Years Ago
“Let him go.”
Dan, Ethan’s friend has Cade’s arms locked behind his back, holding him still. It seems that no matter how hard I try to escape my past, it keeps creeping back to haunt me. But unlike my father, I don’t prey on people who aren’t able to defend themselves. Cade is a weak piece of shit and when I throw my first punch, I want to be sure he can fight back.
Not that he will be able to.
“Micah,” Ethan warns.
“You must have been dreaming of this day for years,” my father spits, eyeing my adoptive father. Before I can ask him why he’s even talking to him, his attention shifts to me. He gives his shoulder a rough jerk to rid himself of Dan’s hold, but they both barely budge.
“Let him go,” I repeat in a harsher tone.
Ethan gives Dan a quick nod, and Cade is released.
Happy fucking birthday to me.
I give Cade a few seconds to shake off the tension from his wrists and for the first time in his life, my father is introduced to my fist.
The soothing sound of his jaw cracking when my knuckles strike his face creates a frenzy I’m unable to control. Over and over, hit after hit… each punch I inflict on his body causes a numbing pain to radiate from my fist to my heart, and with every grunt or cry of agony expelling out of him, uncontrollable laughter seeps out of me.
I can’t stop.
“Get up,” I bark at my father’s limp body lying on the ground. My hands, my face, my clothing, are coated with more blood than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, yet I can’t bring myself to stop hurting him.
I wonder what he’s thinking… how he feels about finding out what kind of emotionless human being he and my mother created?
“I think he’s had enough,” Ethan berates.
“He’s had enough when I say he’s had enough,” I snarl.
Ethan’s fatherly hand presses against my chest, and he gives me a stern glare. “I said he’s had enough. Go to the garage and get cleaned up. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Dan’s loud curse slices the silence when he notices me shoving Ethan away. He takes a step in my direction, but my adoptive father cautions him to leave me alone and I walk away. Not five minutes pass by before I hear a door creak.
“Micah?” Aaryn speaks softly, almost as if she’s afraid to startle me.
I glance her way and shake my head. I don’t want to talk. I want to get wasted, race my bike, and fuck a nameless girl. In that order… or not. I really don’t care. “I need a drink.”
She shuts the door behind her and makes her way over to the fridge to grab a couple of Blue Moons. “Ethan and Dan are taking care of the mess you left on the ground.”
“
And Cade?”
She shrugs, eyeing me cautiously as I empty my bottle in one gulp.
“He should have let me finish him off.”
“And have you pinned for murder? I don’t think so.”
“He’d deserve every second of it,” I point out.
“He would, but you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if he did. Let the cards fall the way they’re supposed to, Lambert.”
“Ethan doesn’t deserve this. After everything he’s done for me…”
“You give him too much credit.” She lights up a smoke and leans up against the wall beside me.
“I’m serious, Walker. Cade is a real fucker. He’ll figure out a way to pour shit on my head until I’m dead. Ethan could have cops barging in here at any time and—”
“I think the old man is more than capable of taking care of himself.”
“That’s beside the point.” My knuckles smash the face staring back at me into twenty different pieces. Shattered glass scatters at my feet, and I grip the sink. “I’m done, Aaryn.”
“Okay.”
I wipe the remaining blood off my hands and face, and slide on my hoodie. “Okay?”
She nods and turns around. “I’ll be back in half-an-hour.”
“Just like that?”
“Half-an-hour, Micah.”
Okay…
Loud music blasts through the speakers as I cross The Devil’s Gate backyard forty-five minutes later. The lingering smell of Cade’s cologne is replaced by the stench of bleach, and where there should be a puddle of blood, a thick coat of sand and gravel covers the ground.
He’s gone. In fact, if it weren’t for me almost killing my father, I wouldn’t even know he’d been here.
I should be relieved, but I’m not.
Inside the bar, Ethan is back at work. He’s standing on his side of the counter with a glass of Jack in his hand, and business is booming as if nothing happened outside its walls. I lock eyes with a few guys from school who showed up to celebrate my birthday and shoot Vince a quick text message, asking him how long it will take for him to get here. We need to talk and preferably before Aaryn gets here. She texted me to let me know she got delayed and should be back within the next hour. It gives me just enough time to lay my plan out to Ethan and grab a few last drinks with the guys.
Broken Promises (Burning Mistakes Book 1) Page 8